the christian left

Well, at least I feel special today.  I love birthdays, holidays, reasons to celebrate.  I love events and planning for events.  I love all that stuff!  Over the years, my birthday has gotten lost in the shuffle of parenting, work, and even just taken a back seat to planning for other things.  Fortunately, though, we’ve brought my birthday back.  It’s been great so far this year.

My folks were up on Wednesday.  Time for a funny story.  We had a fabulous dinner at Mama Mia’s, came back home, I opened my gifts, we put the kids to bed, hung out with my parents.  They were headed out to California on Thursday morning for vacation, and so they had to plan to get up in time to leave our house around 4:30 to make it to the airport for their really early flight.  They went to bed around midnight, and B was working and gaming for a while after that.  Around 3, he heard my mom come upstairs for the potty and realized she was taking a shower.  Then my dad came up, and B asked if they knew it was only like 3:20.  Apparently they did not.  My dad just shook his head and they went on.  The best part — they do stuff like this regularly.

Last night was a dinner with the other side of the family at Baja Burrito.  MMMM.  A couple more gifts and all, no real “events”.  I also opened up a package from the mail and had gotten the Chicago Diner cookbook from some dude and his wife.  That was an awesome surprise.  I picked up a few provisions for tonight and that was about all.

Then, this morning, the baby girl insisted that I have presents first thing.  So, I opened my copies of Fugazi “Steady Diet of Nothing”, Sonic Youth “Dirty”, and White Stripes “Icky Thump”.  So I am listening now.  And smiling away.  I hope to finish the right front of my Central Park Hoodie, maybe make soup in the pressure cooker, run for a while, and go throw down at some skee ball tonight!!!

I guess I don’t  deserve any of this, and that is possibly why I am so surprised at it all.  It just makes me feel special and lucky that I’ve got my friends and family.